hi i have a pioneer sc61 and i have one question and cannot find in owners manual. i have a 5.1 system with front hieght speakers.how can i set set it to use auto surround and also have my front hiegts work also. when watching tv in auto surround it shows digital on the reciever but i dont know if my hieghts are on.same thing when watching a bluray it shows dts hd on front of reciever dont know if hieghts are on. any help.

how can i set set it to use auto surround and also have my front hiegts work also.

you can't, not directly. auto surround by itself won't give you height channels.

heights are derived from the surrounds providing the surround information is such that the decoders can create them. there are only 2 surround processing modes that create height channels: Dolby ProLogic IIz (not PLIIx) and Neo X. that's it. anything else, you will not get height channels. Neo X also seems to use part of the front soundstage to create heights.

Height channels are NOT encoded in any Blu-ray, DVD, or broadcast sources. they are synthesized, created from existing 5.1/7.1 soundtracks. there are 3 new BD titles that are enhanced for Neo X, Expendables 2, Dredd, and another one which I don't know, but even those are still only 7.1. the height information is still matrixed in the 7.1 track and has to be derived by the decoder.

Set your receiver to PLIIz or Neo X to get height.

I suggest reviewing your manual again because all the surround processing modes and the differences between them are described. you will also have to have your speakers setup as 9.1, have the FH turned ON & calibrated using Auto MCACC setup menu and using the speaker select button (FH, A, B, Off, etc) on remote/front panel, set to FH not B speakers.

think of Auto Surround as a PC directory, it's a main folder, then inside it are sub-folders, being the Dolby PL, PLIIx, PLIIz modes, Neo X modes, THX is another "directory", which is added to the Dolby's, dts's, or by itself. Stereo, Optimum Surround, ALC are other "directories" by themselves. so you select Auto Surround and whatever processing is doing the real work, Dolby, dts, etc is selected. to get heights, select IIz or Neo X. Auto Surround by itself won't get you there. this isn't a great analogy but it's the best I can think of early AM Auto Surround is basic, and really isn't doing on its own, it just gets you to the menu to select the real processing modes, which you can select directly with remote presses.

another analog is tabs....Auto Surround, Stereo, Optimum, ALC are tabs. once you select the Auto Surround tab, you have choices of added processing. the others are standalone Pioneer proprietary modes and do things by themselves not using dolby, dts processing. if you select Optimum for example, it's different than dolby and does not create heights, it does create 7.1, just does it differently than dolby ProLogic does. I hope this helps.

you can also refer to dolby & dts websites for more info on how they work & are used: